Education Reform
| March 7, 1996 | |||
| The Honorable Pete Wilson Governor of California |
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| The Honorable Bill Lockyer President Pro Tempore of the Senate and Members of the Senate |
The Honorable Rob Hurtt Senate Republican Floor Leader |
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| The Honorable Curt Pringle Speaker of the Assembly and Members of the Assembly |
The Honorable Richard Katz Assembly Democratic Leader |
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| Dear Governor and Members of the Legislature: | ||||||||||
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For California to be competitive
in the nation and the world, it must have educated citizens who
are equipped to be productive workers and supportive players in
a shared community life. California's
schools, which face many challenges, are not meeting these goals.
Among the many efforts designed to address the shortcomings of
today's
education system is the charter school movement.
Charter schools are grounded
in private-sector concepts such as competition-driven improvement,
Total Quality Management, employee empowerment and customer focus.
But they remain very much a public-sector creature, with in-bred
requirements of accountability and broad-based equity. Simple
in theory, complex in practice, charter schools promise academic
results in return for freedom from bureaucracy.
With the 100 charter school
slots authorized in California's
law already filled, tensions are growing. Critics, some with
vested interests in the existing system, fear that charter schools
will prove to be a fruitless pipe dream. Proponents, some who
favor the complete dismantling of the existing system, are pushing
for an expanded opportunity to spread creativity and innovation.
With the law's
mandated evaluation report still three years in the future, the
Little Hoover Commission decided to examine the record of charter
schools in California. The Commission visited 26 charter schools, more than one-fourth of the operational schools in California. The schools included the first, the largest and a mix of urban and rural sites. Overall, the Commission saw evidence of the explosion of energy and the strong community links that occur when teachers, parents and others are given the opportunity to implement their own programs and procedures. Central to the process are committed individuals with leadership ability. And a critical key to success is their skill at involving all stakeholders -- parents, community leaders, students, teachers, other employees -- in a shared vision of what education should look like and accomplish.
On its own, the charter movement
neither creates such individuals nor gives them the training that
would enhance a charter school's
chance for success. But the charter movement does provide a platform
and opportunity for innovative people who are struggling within
the constraints of today's
education system. And successful charter schools may well set
a pattern that will demonstrate the types of skills and support
that need to be provided to all educators.
Based on its site visits and
extensive research, the Commission found that, while the academic
results are not yet clear, charter schools can be judged at least
a partial success on the basis of a variety of criteria. These
include:
While the charter schools in operation have been successful, many have had a difficult struggle and others are finding their options limited. Many of the problems arise from unclear lines of authority, bureaucratic indifference to legislative intent and unintended consequences of the charter law's provisions. To address these concerns and expand opportunities for the creative innovation that is the hallmark of charter schools, the Little Hoover Commission believes the State should take several steps. These include:
Making these modifications in the charter law will increase the ability of charter schools to leverage reform in a system that, like most bureaucracies, resists change. And change is the major promise of charter schools: School by school, the educational system is being asked to shift from accountability for following rules to accountability for results. School by school, teachers and administrators are being given the opportunity to put their concepts for achieving academic excellence into place. And school by school, parents are free to make a decision about whether the educational approach offered by a specific school suits their child and meets their expectations.
Charter schools have proven
to be hardy creatures. They are thriving despite a lack of extra
funding to act as an incentive. They are spreading despite the
difficulty of creating a charter and winning community consensus.
And they are succeeding when many entrenched interests are rooting
for them to fail. But without support and room to grow, charter
schools may remain a limited opportunity for a restricted number
of students. The Little Hoover Commission believes it is important
for the State to provide that support and continue the process
of moving from a rules-based structure to an outcome-based system,
with charter schools as one option.
| ||||||||||
| Sincerely,
Richard R. Terzian Chairman |
Executive Summary
Introduction
Background
Finding 1: Charter Success
Finding 2: Charter Autonomy
Finding 3: Charter Roadblocks
Finding 4: Charter Funding
Conclusion
Appendices
Endnotes
Title (Schools)
Rand Assessment: Reforms Fall Short
Required Elements of School Charters
Breaking Away from Standard Tests (Westwood Elementary, Darnall-E Campus)
Grass Valley: Away from Home (Grass Valley)
Fenton: Fulfilling A Wish List (Fenton Avenue Elementary)
Three Schools: Good and Getting Better (O'Farrell, Peabody, Johnson Urban League)
Two Schools: A Matter of Timing (Deterding, San Francisco International Studies)
Westwood: A Balancing Act (Westwood)
Santa Barbara: Work in Progress (Santa Barbara)
Success in Full Bloom (Vaughn Next Century Learning Center)
Potential for Abuse
A Supportive District (San Carlos)
Starting from Scratch (Jingletown)
Executive Summary
The performance of schools in California
and across the nation is widely recognized as falling short.
Students compare poorly with their counterparts in other nations;
businesses complain that recent graduates cannot do entry level
jobs and lack a good work ethic. For the past couple of decades,
multiple efforts at reforming the education system have been focused
on improving the preparation of students to be productive citizens.
Some of these reforms have been aimed
at improving the existing system by making the components work
better. Other reforms have touted the benefit of eliminating
the present system and moving to a privatized system that relies
on market forces to produce excellence. But a growing movement
combines elements of both: Charter schools embrace private-sector
concepts such as competition and customer-focus while retaining
the accountability and equity that are the foundation of public
sector activities.
The charter school movement is seen
not just as an experiment that will identify the best educational
methods but also as a powerful tool to achieve change within the
education system. The charter schools act as a wedge for both
external and internal forces -- from the outside, student and
parent demand will grow for the kind of choice charter schools
provide and from the inside, other schools will fight for the
flexibility they see charter schools enjoying.
California is not the first state
to enact a charter law, but with more than 100 schools it outdistances
other states in sheer volume. Under the charter system in California,
groups of parents, teachers, community leaders or other interests
who want to form a school may submit a petition, signed by teachers,
to the district school board for approval. Once approved, the
new school and the district have a contractual relationship, as
spelled out in a charter. The school outlines an educational
approach and pledges to produce specified academic results. In
return, the school is free of almost all laws, regulations and
policies that affect other schools. The district monitors performance,
holding the right to revoke the charter if the school fails to
live up to expectations.
In the three years since the charter
law was enacted, no definitive academic evaluation has been performed.
But following a six-month study and on-site inspection of 26
schools, the Little Hoover Commission has reached the following
conclusions and recommendations:
Finding 1: The success of charter schools, indicated
by a variety of factors, makes the statutory cap on their expansion
an unwarranted limitation on creative energy and student access.
Charter schools have been operational too short a time to track academic achievement in a meaningful fashion. But by many measures, as documented by the Little Hoover Commission and other researchers, these schools are successful.
When the charter school law was enacted, an arbitrary cap was put in place to counter fears that experimental schools would proliferate uncontrollably, potentially wasting money and shortchanging children academically before results could be assessed and corrective action taken. However, districts have moved slowly and with deliberation to approve petitions, and the ceiling was not reached until three full years after the law became effective.
During those three years, many charter schools built a record of innovation and accomplishment. Although the record is not without blemishes, experience indicates that the charter law provides school districts with sufficient authority to address problems.
At this point, the cap is preventing districts from moving forward confidently with additional charter schools despite local support and student demand. As a result, the opportunity for constraint-free experimentation embodied in the charter law has been short-circuited and the potential benefits for students have been limited.
Recommendation 1-A: The Governor and the Legislature should modify the charter school law to eliminate the cap as a means of encouraging local leadership to improve education.
The law's author put the case for eliminating the cap succinctly in a recent newspaper article:
At a time when enthusiasm for public schools is low, it is irrational to block the growth of a zero-cost program that is reinvigorating schools up and down the state....California earned a reputation as an innovator by being willing to take chances. We took a chance on charter schools, and evidence is pouring in that they work. With the 1996 legislative session under way, it is time to launch the next stage in the charter schools odyssey.
Local leadership and community involvement can be significant factors in the improvement of education. The charter school mechanism opens the opportunity for both -- and, therefore, should not be blocked by an arbitrary ceiling.
Recommendation 1-B: The Governor and the Legislature should fund and set parameters for the required 1999 assessment of charter schools by framing the issues, describing the array of factors to be examined and naming the types of experts who should be involved in the assessment process.
The present requirement for the Department of Education to assess "the educational effectiveness" of the charter school approach is a vague direction that may not yield a product that will satisfy policy makers' concerns. A more helpful approach would be to list factors to be examined, including change in assessment rankings, degree of parental satisfaction, demonstration of economical value, level of innovation, evidence of increased educational opportunities for teachers, increased focus on low-achieving students, diversity and effective oversight by districts.
The law should also specify experts to be involved in the study, including representatives of teachers, administrators, parents, active charter schools, academic institutions, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education.
Recommendation 1-C: The Governor and the Legislature should require sponsoring districts to consider the quality of charter provisions as a criterion for approval and monitor annual reports of charter school progress in goal achievement.
Because charter schools are supposed to provide documented performance of goals in return for their unlimited flexibility, it is critical that charters contain clear performance goals and assessment plans. Present charters, however, are often vague. In addition, school districts should monitor charter school performance closely enough to provide helpful guidance, if needed, well before charters are brought up for renewal or revocation.
Recommendation 1-D: The Governor and the Legislature should clarify the charter law and the new statewide testing law to ensure that charter schools participate in statewide testing, benchmarking and/or achievement standards systems.
The present uncertainty about whether
charter schools are included in the new testing law clouds the
schools'
ability to share in test funding and may provide an opportunity
for schools that dislike normative testing to avoid the process.
While many assessment tools are flawed and no single indicator
should be used to judge educational performance, it is important
for charter schools to participate along with other schools in
whatever statewide system is created.
Finding 2: The lines of authority between charter
schools, sponsoring districts and the State Department of Education
are not well defined, causing conflicts and confusion.
In its purest form, the charter concept rests on the principle that charter schools are independent from both local and state bureaucracies, except for oversight regarding results. While California's law speaks to that degree of independence -- stating that charter schools should be treated as separate entities and should receive funding directly from the State -- the reality is far different. Both the State Department of Education and sponsoring school districts have taken actions that constrain the ability of charter schools to operate freely.
The State Department of Education has 1) declined to fund charter schools directly; 2) created confusion by treating similar schools differently; 3) interpreted the law in ways not intended by the Legislature; and 4) in the past, provided only lukewarm support for those seeking technical assistance.
Some school districts have 1) used the charter mechanism to generate extra revenue for the district; 2) held charters hostage to continuing controls as the quid pro quo for charter approval; and 3) allowed unions to dictate charter approval terms and conditions.
As a result, many charter schools have only limited freedom to experiment and their operators devote an enormous amount of energy to battling district and state bureaucracies over rule-based controls. This is contrary to charter law intent, which describes a goal of providing a mechanism to move from rule-based to performance-based accountability.
Recommendation 2-A: The State Department of Education should comply immediately with the wording and intent of the current law by funding charter schools directly.
There is little convincing evidence that the department is unable to apportion funds directly to the 100 charter schools since it is already computing the figures. The Legislature may wish to remind the department of this priority through budget control language. While the added workload of computations for an additional 100 schools seems small compared to the 1,100 districts and county offices the department is already handling, the Legislature may also wish to consider earmarking additional resources for this function.
Recommendation 2-B: The Governor and the Legislature should modify the "things of value" statute to allow independent study programs to provide a range of learning opportunities.
Some schools have been told that they may not offer smaller class sizes, educational supplies, special programs or other options because similar benefits are not available to all classroom students in a district. Such a restriction is antithetical to both the charter school concept and the purpose behind independent study in any school. The law should be modified in such a way as to preclude cash or material "bounties" intended to entice students into a program but to allow specialized educational materials to be provided.
Recommendation 2-C: The Governor and the Legislature should authorize a study of the use of the independent study modality by school districts.
The concerns raised by some charter critics about independent study charter schools are issues that arise in non-charter programs as well. These concerns include the potential for a district to use independent study as a revenue generator because of the low cost; the lack of clear standards for academic achievement and effort; and the potential for using the mechanism to underwrite the teaching of religion at home.
While not a focus of the Little Hoover Commission's charter school study, many experts told the Commission independent study programs are growing rapidly and with little control or monitoring of results. Some have suggested that the independent study option should be structured differently so that districts retain the flexibility to meet the needs of students but are not given excessive fiscal incentives to do so through the independent study method.
A baseline study to identify the status of independent study programs throughout the state would be a good beginning to examining alternatives and addressing concerns.
Recommendation 2-D: The Governor and the Legislature should clarify that charter schools operated by county offices of education have the same freedoms and responsibilities granted to other charter schools.
Because funding sources are different for county boards of education, the Department of Education has ruled that charters operated by counties must continue to comply with restrictions regarding instructional minutes, certificated teachers and calendar days. But there is little sense in having a second-class category of charter schools.
Recommendation 2-E: The Governor and the Legislature should authorize and fund a charter school technical assistance/advocacy unit.
The formation of some charter schools has been needlessly more difficult as they have struggled to reinvent the wheel with little knowledgeable assistance. A unit that would provide information, networking and advocacy could be established in the Governor's child development office or under the direct oversight of the State Board of Education at the Department of Education.
Recommendation 2-F: The Governor and the Legislature should amend the charter law to give charter schools status as separate legal governmental entities, with full liability for their actions and full ability to participate in state programs available to districts. Sponsoring districts should be released from liability for actions taken by charter schools.
With freedom should come responsibility. It makes little sense to place charter schools firmly under the direct control of districts and expect them to act differently from regular schools. But it makes even less sense to tell sponsoring districts that they have no authority over charter schools without relieving them of liability. Charter schools would still be able to negotiate with districts for services, including the ability to buy into the district's liability insurance system or to find separate liability insurance on the open market or in pools with other educational institutions.
Recommendation 2-G: The Governor and the Legislature should enact legislation to clarify that labor issues will be settled in the charter negotiation process between districts and charter schools, separately from the districts' normal bargaining processes.
The charter law should specifically state that the Education Employment Relations Act is waived for charter schools. In addition, to ensure that labor arrangements are made between the charter school and the district without interference, conditions under which charters may be approved should be prohibited from being addressed in collective bargaining agreements between the district and its non-charter employees. Finally, districts should be prohibited from unilaterally imposing terms and conditions in existing collective bargaining agreements on the charter school.
Finding 3: The processes for establishing and
operating charter schools have created unintended consequences
that limit flexibility and reduce opportunities for innovation.
The charter law describes a set procedure for obtaining approval of a charter and appealing any rejection by a school district. On other issues -- such as dispute resolution mechanisms and the applicability of the State's earthquake safety provisions -- the law is silent. On still others, the law's ambiguity has caused conflicts. In each of these areas, charter proponents argue that modifying the original law would allow a fuller exploration of educational opportunities under outcome-based accountability.
Recommendation 3-A: The Governor and the Legislature should create -- in addition to the 10 percent/50 percent teacher-signature mechanism -- alternative requirements that would allow other groups to petition districts for charter approval.
Alternatives could involve requiring a set number of parent signatures or proof of support through community surveys or by academic evaluation. While leaving intact a mechanism that ensures a large role for teachers in creating charter schools, creating other processes would allow other stakeholders, such as parents, community interests or district boards themselves, to be the major driving force behind educational alternatives. District boards would still be required to weigh the level of community and employee support before approving a charter, and a board could reject any petition that failed to attract teacher support.
Recommendation 3-B: The Governor and the Legislature should enact legislation authorizing the State Board of Education, county offices of education and higher education institutions to sponsor charter schools.
Giving charter proponents alternate sources for approval will put all participants in the bargaining process that occurs between sponsor and petitioner on a level playing field and encourage greater reform efforts spurred by the competition to win or retain students. It also will provide a valuable link between institutions that train teachers, administrators and other child development specialists and the schools that professionals eventually operate in.
Recommendation 3-C: The Governor and the Legislature should strengthen the charter petition appeals process to make it a more effective forum for balancing local concerns.
Rather than requiring a panel to review the district's decision and send improperly rejected petitions back for second consideration, the process could be revamped so that rejected petitioners can make their case for approval directly to the county board of education. In the alternative, if the panel process is retained, it could be strengthened by adding outside interests, such as community leaders, parents and private-sector representatives. In addition, the district and the appeal panel could be required to specify which of the 13 elements were unsatisfactory and steps that charter proponents could take to make their proposal acceptable.
Recommendation 3-D: The Governor and the Legislature should clarify the charter law to exempt sponsoring districts from Field Act liability for charter operations.
School boards should not be held at risk for a law that charter schools are allowed to ignore. Under the charter law, their obligation should be met by ensuring that charter drafters have adequately addressed concerns under the charter health-and-safety element.
Recommendation 3-E: The Governor and the Legislature should prohibit sponsoring districts from charging charter schools rent if the facilities to be used are not already generating revenue for the district.
To continue the revenue neutrality of the charter school concept and to ensure that charter school budgets are not deprived of funds that should be directed into the classroom, districts should not be allowed to require charter schools to shoulder a burden not shared by other schools. The State's per-pupil funding mechanism has never been intended to cover capital outlay costs, which instead are met by bonds. The law could include exceptions to take care of districts that incur additional facility costs because of the charter school's occupancy of needed quarters. And it should allow the district to impose the same costs allocated to all schools in the district for retirement of bonds, as long as the charter school is also apportioned a share of all district funding, such as developer fees, that contribute to covering facility costs.
Recommendation 3-F: The Governor and the Legislature should require charters to have an additional element defining a dispute resolution process.
Because charter schools and their sponsoring districts are closely linked but have differing interests, disputes arise. Addressing how those will be handled ahead of time should make problems easier to resolve.
Recommendation 3-G: The Governor and the Legislature should define the charter renewal process in law.
Before rejecting a request for charter renewal, districts should provide written reasons, including specifying which, if any, of the 13 elements in the charter are inadequate or need to be revamped. They also should consider the level of community support for the continuation of the school. In addition, the legislation could restrict the reasons for non-renewal to those applying to revocations: committing a material violation of the charter conditions, failing to pursue the promised pupil outcomes, failing to use good fiscal management and violating any provision of law.
Recommendation 3-H: The Governor and the Legislature should require charter renewal, revocation and appeals processes to be conducted according to open meeting laws.
The public has a legitimate interest
in how decisions regarding charter schools are made. Any actions
to renew, revoke or consider an appeal should take place in the
public arena.
Finding 4: Many of the systemic funding problems
that affect all schools adversely affect the ability of charter
schools to be innovative and flexible.
California's funding mechanism for education is a crazy-quilt of apportionments and entitlements that is so convoluted that only a handful of people in the state understand its complexities. The situation becomes more tangled when it pertains to charter schools, which by law are not subject to restrictions and requirements -- but are affected by formulas that determine how much their share is. The resulting specific problems that affect charter schools include:
Recommendation 4-A: The Governor and the Legislature
should enact legislation that clearly establishes the funding
base for charter schools as a proportionate amount of all district
funding.
Charter schools should not be expected to be innovative, creative and academically successful with less funding than normal schools. But they should also not be constrained by a system that pigeon-holes funding and how it may be applied for and spent. One way of avoiding these problems is to give charter schools a proportionate amount of all funding that comes into the district.
Under this system, the apportionment assigned to a charter school would be an amount of funding that is equal to the district's entire funding, regardless of source, divided by all the total number of students in the district, and then multiplied by the number of students at the charter school. (Because of the federal restrictions on some funds, this would require the State to seek federal waivers.)
In addition, to avoid the problem of requiring districts to submit data that includes charter schools when charter schools are not required to collect such data, the law should allow districts to arrive at non-charter numbers and then factor in a proportionate additional amount to account approximately for charter students.
Recommendation 4-B: The Governor and the Legislature
should set the funding for charter schools with non-district sponsors
at the state average funding for the appropriate school type.
If the State chooses to create alternate sponsors, such as state universities and colleges, a separate funding scheme will have to be enacted to cover costs. One alternative is to grant charter schools with non-district sponsors the average state funding for elementary or high schools, depending on the scope of the school. In addition, these schools could be granted an average amount derived from all non-federal categoricals.
Recommendation 4-C: The Governor and the Legislature
should redefine the relationship between funding and students
for charter schools.
While the average daily attendance
definition for charter schools moves away from many of the restrictions
in the normal attendance system, it does not go far enough. The
State has an opportunity to use charter schools as a pilot for
changes many policy makers have long recognized as necessary in
the way student presence is counted. One way of doing this is
to require charter schools to submit
" active
monthly enrollment"
figures, which could be defined as the number of different students
engaged in educational activities at a school over the course
of a month.
Recommendation 4-D: The Governor and the Legislature
should create a revolving loan fund for first-year and rapidly
expanding charter schools.
First-year and rapidly growing charter
schools should have a resource for covering payrolls, daily expenses
and other operating costs until their funding starts to flow from
the state. A fund that covers those costs and then recoups the
loan from future apportionments would ease cash flow problems
these schools suffer from.
Introduction
Ask Californians what they are concerned about and crime or the economy is often the answer. But ask Californians with children or those who care about obtaining a productive work force -- and the answer invariably turns to education. Indeed, many believe that the quality of education that the State's young citizens receive has a direct bearing on issues such as crime and the economy. And despite recent contrarian attempts to demonstrate that the education community is doing well considering the many challenges it faces, there is widespread consensus that California's kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) schools do not do a good job of preparing children for a bright future.
Despite years of intense focus, agonizing debate and repeated promises of reform, California's schools look, act and are funded pretty much as they have been for decades -- except they are worse for the wear and crammed to over-capacity. In essence, the K-12 education system counts noses, multiplies the number by complicated factors that differ from school district to school district, sends a check based on the resulting figure and then monitors how the money is spent. In this system, the end product is almost an afterthought. No one tabulates, evaluates or ranks results against a statewide standard of desirable achievement. At no point is outcome linked to the continued existence of a school or the survival of an educational paradigm.
Three years ago, the chance to change this long-lived dynamic came when the Governor and the Legislature embraced a foot-in-the-door concept called charter schools. Up to 100 schools were allowed to step outside the system, design their own operations -- and earn their continued existence by proving the value of their decisions through documented student achievement.
Many involved in the creation of the charter school program thought that widespread frustration with the current system would prompt a modern-day Gold Rush through this door of opportunity. But the stampede never materialized. People moved cautiously and a full three years passed before the number 100 was assigned to a charter school and pressure began to build for more.
Others worried that non-credentialed teachers would feed students a watered-down curriculum or that specialized educational "cults" might arise, subsidized at public expense. There is scant, if any, evidence of this occurring. Others feared that the lure of fiscal freedom would unleash profiteers in the classroom. Nor has this occurred on any grand scale.
| Up to 100 schools were allowed to step outside the system, design their own operations -- and earn their continued existence by proving the value of their decisions through documented student achievement. |
What has occurred in charter schools has yet to be documented. The enabling statue requires a Department of Education assessment, but not until January 1, 1999. In the meantime, many believe the program could be tweaked -- some because they want to see charter schools made "more accountable" and others because they want to ensure the freedom that the original law intended.
Long an evaluator of California's education efforts, the Little Hoover Commission in August 1995 embarked on an assessment of the charter school program. The Commission's goal was to determine how the experiment is progressing and identify any obstacles to the full exploration of alternatives promised by the charter school concept.
Gathering more than 70 experts with diverse backgrounds on an advisory committee, the Commission conducted 36 hours of working group sessions to identify key issues and possible solutions (please see Appendix A for the list of those who participated on the advisory committee). In addition, the Commission convened two public hearings, one in Los Angeles and one in Sacramento, to explore issues with education leaders, academic experts, labor interests and parent representatives (please see Appendix B for the agendas of the two public hearings). The Commission also reviewed literature from across the nation, conducted numerous interviews with experts and received input from many who heard about the study as it progressed.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Commission visited 26 different charter school operations throughout the state, meeting with principals, teachers, staff, parents and students (please see Appendix C for a list of schools visited). Since this represents more than one-fourth of the charter schools (some of which are not yet operational), the Commission believes it is uniquely situated to report on the reality, as well as the theory, of charter schools in California.
The Commission's multi-faceted efforts and resulting conclusions are documented
in this report, which begins with a transmittal letter to the
Governor and the Legislature, an Executive Summary and this Introduction.
The following sections include a Background and four findings,
each with accompanying recommendations for action. Interspersed
throughout are the stories of the 26 school sites visited by the
Commission. The report ends with a Conclusion, Appendices and
Endnotes.
Background
For the past three years, California
schools have had the opportunity to experiment with different
administrative and educational approaches under a law that waives
the statutes, regulations and policies that apply to other schools
in return for a contractual promise to produce results. While
too new for any definitive assessment of student outcome, charter
schools have had enough longevity for those involved to identify
key problem areas and to push for reforms. To assess what has
been accomplished and what goals have yet to be realized requires
an understanding of the charter school movement.
This background section explores some of the theoretical underpinnings of the charter movement, lays out the provisions of California's own charter law and summarizes the national experience with charter schools.
Charter School Theory
Most authorities on charter schools trace the origin of the concept to a 1988 book by educator Ray Budde titled Education by Charter: Restructuring School Districts. But the idea has a rich and long heritage in the alternative education movement that grew in the 1960s and 70s and centered on parents being able to choose from a variety of school formats operated by committed teachers.1 A substantial body of research indicates that alternative schools are highly effective for multiple reasons, including the element of choice in attendance.2
Budde built on alternative schools by adding a formalized contract between teachers and the school district and placing the concept in the context of changing the way schools are governed. He believed education by charter would achieve four goals:
| The idea was attractive to those who wanted private-sector concepts to drive school improvement -- but who were loath to see education move outside the public sector, where it had proved a unifying experience for more than a century. |
Budde's idea for allowing a group of teachers to enter into a binding charter with their school board to operate an alternative educational program was promoted in a 1988 speech by American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker. In his adaptation of Budde's concept, Shanker envisioned autonomous units within schools that would be created and operated by groups of teachers under a procedure developed by parents and teacher unions. The school-within-a-school would have specific learning objectives measured by performance-based assessment.4
The charter school idea was attractive to those who wanted private-sector concepts like competition to drive school improvement -- but who were loath to see education move outside the public sector, where it had proved a unifying experience for the country's diverse citizenry for more than a century. By 1991, Minnesota had passed the first charter law in the United States, followed by California in 1992 and more than a dozen others since.
Like many theories that are fleshed out by laws, the charter school concept was modified from Budde's and Shanker's original idea. While charter laws vary from state to state, most have the following common threads: Organizers, who may be parents, teachers or other interests, commit to an educational approach and guarantee to produce measurable results in a contract that is approved by a sponsoring educational agency, usually a school district. The new charter school receives funding on a per-pupil basis and is freed from adhering to most educational laws, regulations and policies. In return, the school must produce the agreed-upon results or the charter can be revoked. Students attend charter schools by choice and parents often are required to commit to some level of participation as volunteers.
The lure of charter schools is multi-faceted. One institute that follows charter school issues summarized their attraction as follows:
Charter schools find support on both ends of the political spectrum. An article in The Economist reported, "Republicans like the charter idea because it offers greater choice; Democrats like it because...it keeps ... within the bounds of free public education."8 The Democratic Leadership Council endorsed the charter school concept at least partially because of what charter schools are not: precursors to private school vouchers and an abandonment of public education. The Council's position paper said:
These schools remain within the public school system but without much of the bureaucracy. They encourage teachers to use innovative instruction methods and make them accountable for the results. And they ensure that parents and the surrounding community are involved in each school's< success. Finally, charter schools force other public schools to compete for students ... compelling them to improve their facilities and curriculum or face lower enrollments.9
Charter school proponents tend to divide into two camps over the significance of the charter movement. Some see the movement as an experiment that will allow the identification of methods and practices that should be duplicated in traditional schools once their value has been proven. But others see charter schools as leverage to force change throughout the existing educational system. These proponents believe that in response to the expected success of charters and their attraction for parents and students, the educational establishment will have to change -- or lose funding, face and a future:
To these reformers, charter schools are not anti-public schools but pro-child, pro-publicchoice, and they offer real alternatives. These reformers realize that charter schools are not intended to replace all existing public school systems, but will, just as Apple Computer helped change the culture of IBM and foreign automobile makers prodded change in domestic-auto quality, provide the productive tension needed to spur enhancements in children's learning environments.10
The enthusiasm for charter schools is fervent among believers. But the charter school movement has opponents, as well. Some fear that charter schools will become isolated, elite campuses of excellence that will doom the large numbers of children left out to mediocre educations. Others worry that charter schools are a backdoor way of subsidizing religious teachings with public dollars. Some unions believe that employees' rights will not be adequately protected and that hard-won benefits will disappear. Education administrators, deeply engrained with the habit of procedural accountability, believe that relaxed or non-existent rules are an invitation to corruption, graft and scandal. School districts are often uncomfortable with the unaccustomed role of outcome oversight.
Some charter school critics believe that the maverick, school-by-school approach is unnecessary -- that many other reforms are in process that will pay off eventually. And it is true that the charter concept was not put forth in a vacuum. The clarion call for school improvement that followed the publication of A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform in 1983 -- a report that found the country's education efforts seriously flawed -- has yielded many flavors of educational reform:
The results of the flurry of reforms have been uneven: a good school here, higher test scores there:
For decades, administrators, reformers and legislators attempted to improve school performance by mandating curricula, shrinking class sizes, paying teachers more, setting hour requirements for continuing professional development, and other strategies intended to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Billions of dollars have been poured into such "reforms" with precious little to show for them in terms of student achievement.11
When success occurs, analysts seeking to identify factors that could be replicated broadly often find that the key is having dynamic, risk-taking individuals who drive the process -- the type of individuals who are in limited supply and not easily replicated.
So far, none of the reforms has proven to be a magic bullet that would improve education uniformly, under all circumstances and for all children, although some had a measurable impact on student performance.12 "We have this romantic view that if we can show a successful pilot school, others will follow. Not true," said one educational reformer who pointed out that decades of successful magnet and model schools have not transformed the system.13
| The overly centralized, top-down structure of education is not capable of providing the diversity of learning environments necessary to meet the different needs of children. |
Writing in Politics, Markets, and America's Schools in 1990, John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe theorized that the nature of the educational bureaucracy is such that no reforms will succeed completely. The two authors found that reforms are ritualized, regimented and institutionalized until they, too, become part of the overly centralized, top-down structure of education. Such a system is not capable of providing the diversity of learning environments necessary to meet the different needs of children.14
Taken up by those who advocate a privatized system for education, the Chubb and Moe thesis was quickly entangled in the politicized atmosphere of the fight over vouchers, which allow parents to spend public funding on private school choices. But their conclusions were also taken seriously by those who wanted to retain the public nature of schools. A 1991 Rand study designed to examine alternative structures for school governance echoed the Chubb and Moe findings:
The study's goal was to find ways of freeing teachers and principals from the heavy burden of regulation that reduced U.S. school's productivity, while ensuring that schools remained accountable to the public. It was inspired by earlier research showing that site-based management and other "decentralization" efforts initiated by school systems had largely failed. Those efforts did not change the basic centralizing forces in school systems: school boards that create mandates affecting all schools, control of funding by the head office, and civil service rules and union contracts that determine teacher assignments and working conditions.15
| The fairness emphasized in education is one of sameness, regardless of need. And the accountability is for adherence to rules, not for producing desirable outcomes. |
The Rand report advocates a new structure of educational governance: contracting between individual schools or groups of schools and school districts. Such a structure -- in essence charters implemented universally -- would address the problems with the current system, including its misdirected focus. The Rand study highlights that the present education system has two goals: fairness and accountability. While laudable words that are difficult to argue against, these two goals often have little to do with student outcome. The fairness emphasized in education is one of sameness, regardless of circumstances or needs. And the accountability is for adherence to rules, not for producing desirable outcomes. The Rand study concludes:
By strictly limiting the freedom and responsibility of the people on the front lines -- principals and teachers -- American public education puts apparent fairness and the avoidance of problems and controversy first and productivity second. If schools were problem-solving organizations, they would be diverse -- as different as required in a society where children have different interests, gifts, language backgrounds and degrees of academic preparation, and teachers have different talents. The fact they are, to the contrary, compliance organizations makes most of them passive, routinized and slow to adapt to changes in students' needs, technology and teacher talents.16
After reviewing private-sector, governmental and foreign management structures, the Rand report identified six elements critical to success for a system that, by its nature, must deliver services in widely dispersed places: The local units, or schools, must be self-reliant, have control over local decisions, have flexibility, and be accountable for locally identified results. The umbrella organization, or school district office, must provide assistance rather than direction and emphasize problem-solving rather than control.17
Pushing responsibility for education down to the most local level of control -- the school itself -- does not simply follow the theories that have driven the private sector's focus on quality improvement. It also fits in with academic studies of how to improve learning. One study has found that educational achievement is closely tied to size and state funding share:
On average, states with large districts and large schools and states that pay more of the costs of education tend to have the lowest achievement. During the past half century, nonetheless, states have created ever larger schools and districts, and they have increasingly employed remote state funding. Previous theory, research and analyses of achievement data in 38 states... suggest that these trends have been counterproductive for education's chief purpose -- learning.18
| Rand Assessment: Reforms Fall Short
In searching for a new paradigm for school governance, Rand examined a variety of reform efforts but concluded in Reinventing Public Education that each was piecemeal and therefore ineffective:
Voucher plans define how parents obtain the financial resources to demand better public schools, but not how public or private agencies will provide better schools. Charter schools reduce the burden of regulation on a few schools, but leave the vast majority under the existing governance system. Site-based management changes decision-making at the school level, but does nothing to change the mission and powers of the central office and little to minimize federal and state regulations, categorical program requirements and union contract prohibitions. School board reformers urge an end to micro-management, but they do not relieve board members of the need to resolve complaints and conflicts by making new policies that constrain all schools." Systemic" reforms try to "align" the different parts of public education via mandated goals, tests, curriculum frameworks and teacher certification methods, but do nothing to eliminate the political and contractual constraints that create fragmented, unresponsive schools. While the Rand report saw charters as a limited experiment that would not succeed in bringing wholesale reform, the report's thrust -- to replace centralized school management with individual performance contracts between schools and governing boards -- is the charter concept on a grand scale. In favoring this alternative, the Rand report dismissed other types of governance system reforms:
One can believe that the current governance system will work, but only under the assumption that school staff members can learn to take initiative and responsibility despite a structure of incentives designed to stifle it. One can believe that a market system will work, but only under the assumption that demand will spontaneously elicit a supply of schools that everyone, including the inner-city poor, can find worth choosing. One can believe that a standards and realignment system will work, but only under the assumption that a strong centrally administered system of rewards and penalties would not induce a compliance mentality at the school level. In contrast, contracting "is a plausible alternative to the current system, and gives parents, citizens and public officials a way of handling problems that have defeated educational policy makers." |
Others have put it more eloquently. "Charter
schools provide a license to dream for teachers, parents and all
members of the school community -- and an opportunity to see those
dreams become a reality.19" The speaker was Senator Gary Hart, who made the case for charter schools and successfully authored a law that put California into play in the charter school movement.
California's Charter Law
The charter school law in California,
signed into law in 1992 and effective January 1, 1993, allows
100 schools statewide and up to 10 in any single school district
to follow a petition process to become a charter school (please
see Appendix D for the complete text of the law). The
law outlines six goals:
In return for documenting student
outcomes, charter schools are not required to follow any laws
that pertain to school districts other than the charter school
law itself, requirements in a specific section of law dealing
with independent study programs and criminal record checks for
school employees.
Among the requirements imposed
by the charter school law are that charter schools must make provisions
for the health and safety of students, cannot discriminate in
student selection, must be non-sectarian and cannot charge students
tuition. In addition, the law says existing private schools may
not convert to public schools.
The area of potential enrollment
for charter schools is the entire state, although existing schools
converted to charter status must give preference to students residing
in the original school attendance area. Attendance by students
is voluntary rather than by assignment.
Under the law, any group or
individual may petition a local school district board to create
a charter school if they have the signatures of either 50 percent
of the teachers at a particular school site or 10 percent of the
teachers in the school district. None of the teachers need to
be committed to teaching at the new facility, and if the school
site/50 percent option is used, there is no requirement that the
site be the intended facility for the proposed charter school.
California's law requires each charter to address 13 areas:
The professional qualifications
to be required of potential school employees.
Once a petition is submitted,
the school district board is required to consider the elements
contained within the charter and the level of support for the
charter school's creation. If the board rejects the petition, the charter proponents may appeal to the county superintendent of education, who sets
up a panel to consider whether the petition received a fair hearing.
The school district board can be directed by the review panel
to rehear the matter. If the petition still is not approved,
the county board of education may consider approving the charter
under its own authority.
Once a petition is approved, it is registered with the State Board of Education, which assigns it a number and checks the petition for completeness. This is not an approval process, but rather a registration procedure.
The charter -- a contractual
arrangement between the school and the district -- spells out
how the school will be governed and operated and describes how
the school's success should be measured. There are 13 areas that
charters are required to address, including descriptions of the
academic program, expected outcomes and process for measuring
results.20
Charters can be granted for
up to five years and can be renewed thereafter up to five years
at a time. The charter school law envisions the main level of
oversight coming from the district, which has the power to revoke
the charter if its provisions are not followed, fiscal mismanagement
occurs, student outcome is not pursued as outlined in the charter
or any provision of applicable law is violated.
Charter schools now in operation
in California range widely in look and content. A few are so
traditional and are tied so closely to their sponsoring district
that the operational differences appear slight. Some make extensive
use of information technology, having children from around the
state log-on to electronic classrooms. Some schools broaden the
standard curriculum with an emphasis on performing arts or vocational
training; others ignore the state curriculum framework and follow
Montessori or Waldorf theory. Many make adjustments to school
calendars and the length of the instructional day.
Charter schools can be classified
by their physical facilities. The chart below gives overall statistics
for charter schools in California as of February 27, 1996.
CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOLS
As the chart indicates, about
21 percent of the charter schools are independent study programs.
Of the remainder, roughly half are conversions of existing schools
and half are charter schools that have been created and placed
in either private or unused school facilities. (Numbers that
have been returned to the State include the consolidation of eight
schools into a single charter complex in the Los Angeles Unified
School District and two schools into a single charter in Kings
County.)
The size of California's charter schools ranges from small independent study programs, such as the home study program in Magalia with 18 students, to Placer High Charter School with 1,617 students and O'Farrell
Community School's 1,400 middle school students. Students attending charter schools are about one-half of one percent of California's 5.4 million student population.
The schools are widely distributed
geographically, with a mix of urban, rural and suburban throughout
the state. Thirty out of the State's 58 counties have charter schools. Population-heavy San Diego and Los Angeles counties have the largest numbers of charter schools (14 each, when Los Angeles' single complex of eight schools are counted individually), but they are followed closely by the more sparsely populated San Bernardino (eight), Nevada (eight) and Placer (six) counties. The map on the next page gives an indication of the geographic distribution
of the first 83 schools:21
The National Experience
While California is leading
the way in terms of volume with 109 approved charters, it was
neither the first state to charter schools nor is its law as innovative
as those elsewhere. By the fall of 1995, there were 210 charter
schools in operation across the nation, with another 55 approved
but still working on implementation. Twenty states had charter
laws, while another 15 states considered but did not pass legislation
in 1995.22
Those who follow charter schools
closely define state laws as strong or weak, depending on the
elements provided. Strong laws provide alternate sponsors to
district boards or an appeals process; wide latitude on who may
organize a charter; automatic exemptions from laws; fiscal autonomy;
legal autonomy; unlimited numbers of charters; and an ability
to use non-certified teachers.23
Weak laws require the assent of too many stakeholders; limit charters to conversions of existing schools; place the local school board in sole charge of granting charters without an appeal mechanism; and fail to exempt charter schools from enough laws, regulations and contractual provisions.24
The chart on the following
page displays the states with charter laws and ranks them from
stronger to weaker on a horizontal axis.
California's law is evaluated as fairly strong, having six of the seven weighed elements. However, its ranking is deceptive. As will be examined in Finding 4, several of the elements that can be read into California's law do not provide the level of strength anticipated. For instance, the appeals process theoretically provides a counterbalance to
reluctant school district boards, but for the most part has not
proven effective in California. Also the degree of fiscal and
legal autonomy is a gray area that must be bargained as part of
the charter approval process -- but charter proponents have little
or no leverage to bargain with.
Those who track charter schools
nationally have found that states with weak laws produce few,
if any, charter schools -- possibly because forming a charter
is usually lengthy and difficult and little benefit is gained
under weak laws. States with stronger laws account for most of
the operational charter schools: Minnesota, California, Colorado,
Massachusetts, Michigan and Arizona.25
While many of the charter laws
are similar, the states sometimes take different approaches.
The summaries below indicate key provisions in several of the
states:
Charter schools are too new
for any definitive assessment of student outcome. The United
States General Accounting Office, for instance, examined charter
schools across the nation in January 1995 but noted that many
charter schools are still forming systems to measure results.26
The Pew Charitable Trusts have granted funding to the Hudson
Institute for a two-year national study, but the evaluation process
is just beginning. Both the Southwest Regional Laboratories and
the Far West Laboratories have studied charter schools but have
largely concentrated on demographics, charter creation issues
and operational differences.
In other countries, charter
movements are also growing. New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Britain,
Denmark, Sweden and Holland are using charters to decentralize
education. A 1992 Brookings Institute study of the British experiment
that began in 1988 concluded that the results have been positive.27
Today more than 1,000 of the country's 33,000 schools have "opted
out" of the formal system under a charter process -- and their existence
has encouraged reforms in the schools still in the system, according
to British experts.28
Data about results is difficult
to come by in California, across the nation or overseas. But
that has not slowed the creation of charter schools. Embraced
by those with differing political perspectives and fed by the
continuing dissatisfaction with the performance of existing public
schools, the charter school movement is gaining momentum. Those
who fear it is an unwarranted rush with an impact on children
that has yet to be gauged are answered by those who see little
hope that a stagnant, self-satisfied educational system will ever
find gumption enough to improve on its own.
In California, as in other
states, the debate has moved from the theoretical to the practical
now that charter schools are in operation. The following sections
of this report examine California's experience with charter schools, define problem areas and make recommendations to improve the charter school program.
Charter Success
Finding 1: The success of charter schools, indicated
by a variety of factors, makes the statutory cap on their expansion
an unwarranted limitation on creative energy and student access.
Charter schools have been operational
too short a time to track academic achievement in a meaningful
fashion. But by many other measures, as documented by the Little
Hoover Commission and other researchers, these schools are successful.
These measures, which are tied to goals defined in the charter
law, include parental satisfaction, innovation, teacher opportunities
and fiscal management. The degree of success means the statutory
cap of 100 schools statewide -- adopted as a cautionary safeguard
-- is now counterproductive, blocking the efforts of those who
have plans to improve educational opportunities and local support
for those plans.
When the charter school law
was enacted, an arbitrary cap was put in place. The number 100
had no special significance or mathematical relationship to the
State's
7,896 public schools, nor was there any attempt to link charter
student numbers to the State's
5.4 million student population
However, districts have moved
slowly and with deliberation to approve petitions, and the ceiling
was not reached until three full years after the law became effective.
During those three years, many charter schools built a record
of innovation and accomplishment. Although the record is not
without blemishes, experience indicates that the charter law provides
school districts with sufficient authority to address problems.
At this point, the cap is preventing
districts from moving forward confidently with additional charter
schools despite local support and student demand. (In February
1996, the State Board of Education began issuing charter numbers
beyond 100 under its own authority to waive portions of the Education
Code, but legal action has been threatened by charter opponents.)
As a result, the opportunity for constraint-free experimentation
embodied in the charter law has been short-circuited and the potential
benefits for students have been limited.
When the charter school law
was passed and signed, many observers believed the implementation
date of January 1, 1993 would bring instantaneous crowds, with
approved petitions in hand, to the State Department of Education
to demand charter numbers before they were used up. Instead,
the Department received only eight petitions in the first few
days. By the end of 1993, 44 charter schools had been approved
and assigned state numbers. A year later, the total rose to 73.
The final numbers were assigned in December 1995.
Some have expressed concern
that the slow build-up indicates that the process to create a
charter school is flawed and stacked against charter school proponents.
Others have used the slow trickle to support their argument that
charter schools are an unneeded reform that is not attractive
to educators.
But a realistic perspective
undoubtedly is that forming a charter school is a work-intensive
project that requires considerable thought, discussion, study
and consensus by the people who will be affected. In producing
the 13 elements required in a charter, the founders must address
a wide variety of topics -- from the fundamental questions of
educational method and forms of student assessment to the practical
details of retirement systems and discipline structure. Because
charter schools are individualistic by nature, founders may borrow
what they admire from predecessor charter schools. But they typically
build on, modify or reframe concepts rather than adopt cookie-cutter
emulation of other charter schools.
The result has been a wide
diversity in look, methods and circumstances. Some charter schools
have focused on providing a different curriculum or a different
approach to teaching the curriculum. Others have concentrated
on giving teachers time to network and collaborate to integrate
course content across grades. Others emphasize providing services
-- to the children, parents or community. Some build around their
perspective of children as natural learners who can help each
other when they are not placed in assigned seats and strictly
regimented by age and grade. Most seek parental involvement,
through volunteerism, fund-raising, student support at home or
simply awareness of classroom activities.
The differences make it difficult
to perform any meaningful analysis of charter schools based on
mere raw numbers or comparative statistics. And the performance
of an individual charter school says little about the overall
success or failure of the charter school mechanism since each
school operates separately, by different rules and standards.
The legislation creating charter
schools directs the Department of Education to review the charter
school approach for "educational
effectiveness"
Several institutions are studying
the performance of charter schools in California, usually focusing
on one or another of the yardsticks outlined above. These include
the Southwest Regional Laboratory, Far West Regional Laboratory,
the Institute for Policy Research and Analysis, Pacific Research
Institute and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Adding to their efforts is
the Little Hoover Commission's
own research. The Commission visited 26 charter schools, in almost
all cases interviewing a combination of teachers, staff, parents
and students. In addition, key personnel at more than a dozen
other charter schools were contacted by phone or interviewed off-site.
While falling short of the numbers surveyed on paper by other
research organizations, the Commission believes the in-depth and
on-site nature of its inquiries contributes strong evidence for
the analysis of the charter school movement in California.
In the sections below, the
separate evaluation efforts are integrated for each of the eight
yardsticks identified above to give an overall assessment of the
performance of charter schools to date.
Test Scores
Meaningful assessment is difficult
in all schools. There is no national or state consensus on what
specific academic benchmarks should be reached by students at
each grade level. An extremely mobile population gives many schools
a high transiency rate, which means they are not testing the same
student body year after year to gauge the academic growth that
can be attributed to the school's
methods. And "snapshot"
scores that allow school-to-school comparisons fail to take into
account differing levels of baseline knowledge when students walk
in the door. A school with large numbers of special education
students, English learners or mid-year transfers may do an excellent
job and provide a stimulating curriculum -- and still have low
scores compared to a more stable school that has few special-need
students.
In addition, attitudes about
tests themselves are changing. Educational experts are moving
away from tests that simply reflect a student's
ability to memorize facts and instead are seeking to develop ways
of measuring how well students can think. One reason is that
fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice tests may actually reflect
more about when a teacher concentrates on a particular skill than
what the child can do. In one example, a school's
math scores shot up dramatically one year, apparently solely because
the teachers there moved the multiplication unit from late in
the school year to early spring.
California's movement in this direction was the California Learning Assessment
System (CLAS), a test that was eventually eliminated after public
dissatisfaction with its content and problems with the statistical
validity of reported results. Its elimination left charter schools
without the mandatory statewide comparison test referenced in
the charter law -- and the enactment of a law in late 1995 authorizing
the creation of a new test failed to include charter schools as
a required participant or funding recipient.
What this means is that at
the same time that there is general recognition of the multiple
flaws in current assessment processes and a breakdown in California's
own measuring system, the State has produced a school-creation
mechanism that relies on proving that student outcomes are good.
The difficulty of meeting that mandate in an era when no other
public schools are held accountable for academic results is recognized
by both opponents and proponents of the charter movement.
So it is not surprising to
find a wide diversity in the quality of performance measuring
plans produced by charter schools. Many charter schools reference
the now-defunct CLAS test in their charters as the single statewide
assessment tool that they will use. And, because they view themselves
as on the cutting edge of educational theory, many charters decry
the standardized multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blanks tests that
are commonly used elsewhere. As the Open School in Los Angeles
wrote:
Most charters include subjective
assessment processes, such as portfolios of student work, performances
by students, individualized evaluations, community service, surveys
and self-evaluations. Many are rhetorically rich and statistically
vague about what increases in student achievement will constitute
success by the school.
BW Associates summarized the
situation in a paper targeted at assessment process:
The researchers concluded that
many new types of reform, including charter schools, "may
be interpreted as countervailing responses to problems of size
and remote governance."
Charter schools must make provisions for the health and safety of students, cannot discriminate in student
selection, must be non-sectarian and cannot charge tuition.
Required Elements of School Charters
Table 1
Charter schools with assigned numbers
109
Charter schools in operation
89
Charter school types:
Conversion of existing schools
38
Start-up schools
35
Independent study modality
23
Numbers returned to State
7
Schools not using charter
4
Unknown
2
Children enrolled in charter schools
36,308
Source:
Little Hoover Commission telephone survey
Data about results is difficult to come by in California, across the nation or overseas. But that has not
slowed the creation of charter schools.
Forming a charter school is a work-intensive
project that requires considerable thought, discussion, study
and consensus by the people who will be affected.
Charter schools must prove they are successful
at a time when testing techniques are viewed as flawed and California
has no statewide system for assessing outcome. We believe strongly that
traditional, standardized multiple choice tests are inadequate...Built
upon outmoded behavioral theories of learning, these measures
focus on discrete skills and narrow basic skills content; neglected
are the complex thinking and problem solving skills which are
the focus of our curriculum and instruction.
All charter schools have
developed outcomes. Only a few have "designed
down" from these outcomes, breaking away from traditional subject area
distinctions. Still fewer have benchmarked those outcomes with
balanced, purposeful and reliable assessment instruments tied
to criteria for determining "how
good is good enough."
|
Many charter schools are uncomfortable with traditional testing mechanisms and express their reservations in their charters. Two examples are Westwood Elementary School in Los Angeles and Darnall-E Campus in San Diego. Westwood Elementary: The major achievement goal of our curriculum is to develop students's thinking and reasoning skills. Part of our vision is to implement a comprehensive assessment plan that will measure how well students can solve problems and understand complex concepts. We want our assessment techniques to reflect the emerging National Performance Standards, especially the emphasis on students' problem solving, communication and reasoning. We are dissatisfied with the current focus on conventional paper-and-pencil multiple-choice tests that measure narrowly defined competencies because we believe such tests cannot measure the full range of outcomes emphasized in our program. We propose instead to use alternative measures, primarily performance-based tests, to evaluate students' achievement and to judge the success of our program. Darnall-E Campus: Most traditional tests do not reflect developmental theory and practices. These tests measure isolated skills, stress academic knowledge and rely heavily on multiple choice questions. Traditional achievement tests have emerged as a reflection of the pressures that too often threaten the normal development of children. "Assessment" is often used synonymously with a paper and pencil, multiple-choice test; "authentic" assessment, however, implies a wide range of methods that provide information to teachers and parents about a student's knowledge, capacity and growth. We recognize that children learn by doing; there is a strong kinesthetic element in all children's discoveries and growth processes. Their assessment should respond to their need for active engagement.
Darnall's
charter also contains a pertinent quote from a San Diego State
University professor: How often does the "real" world require us to select the best from among a through e; or how often are we rewarded for filling in the blanks completely and legibly? Driver's testing, choosing from a menu in a Chinese restaurant, or filling in our tax forms -- these are not the critical tests of our worth as human beings. Why are they the crucial tests of our worth as students? If we're going to prepare students for active, healthy, productive and rewarding lives, then let's test them realistically or authentically: As they pass from one developmental stage to the next, let's see how effectively they have reconciled the conflicts and learned the lessons of the stage they are about to leave behind. Let's see what they can build, and let's give them souvenirs of their accomplishments. If we always associate testing with arbitrary exercises and mystery-answers, we'll never learn the real meaning of challenge and we'll never experience genuine rites of passage. |
BW Associates identified two
schools as models: Bowling Green Elementary in Sacramento and
Guajome Park Academy high school in Vista. At Bowling Green,
the school has identified broad educational goals, such as fluency
in a language, math and science knowledge, writing ability, compassion,
self-initiation and exercise. Those are tied to specific targeted
outcomes with accompanying assessment processes. For math and
science knowledge, for instance, a student should be able to demonstrate
the ability to use algebra skills and concepts -- which will be
measured three ways, a demonstration, an Integrated Performance
Task and the CLAS test.
At Guajome, students are expected
to progress through divisions by demonstrating the mastery of
identified benchmarks with separate portfolios of work. The school
created a School Performance Index that combines progress on school
standards, CLAS results, Advanced Placement exam results, SAT
results and other similar measures.
Other schools have kept their
objectives simple but well-delineated. Fenton Avenue School in
the San Fernando Valley says that students will be assessed by
teacher-made tests, pre- and post-standardized tests, teacher
observation of student's
critical thinking skills and student portfolios. These general
statements are coupled with a specific set of goals for measurable
pupil outcome: "CLAS
scores will increase by at least 10 points in reading, written
expression and mathematics....CTBS and Aprenda scores for all
students will increase by 5 percentile points (with rate of gain
correlating to length of attendance at Fenton)."
Some schools have targeted excellent outcomes but have little definitive to say about assessment. Peabody Charter School requires students to possess the ability to:
The Peabody charter's assessment section lists the CLAS test, portfolios, conferences and surveys, but for the main form of assessment, the charter states goals rather than specific measurement systems. It says:
We propose to use performance-based instruments which are grounded in current theories of learning and cognition, are educationally meaningful and exemplify the types of authentic tasks and competencies students will need for future success.47
Despite this charter-enshrined wish list, Peabody, like most schools, does use standardized tests -- and in their case the results have been good. The principal reports that there were great gains in the CLAS test results when before- and after-charter scores were compared, and standardized test results have been trending up. Similarly, Fenton Avenue reports solid improvement in test scores, and Accelerated Charter School in Los Angeles saw dramatic jumps in reading and math scores.
Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles, on the other hand, has seen scores go down after initial improvements -- but the school also mainstreamed a substantial number of special-needs children into regular classrooms and testing situations. Natomas Charter School in Sacramento is another school that has seen mixed results. Comparing its students to another middle school, Natomas found that its eighth grade students scored high but seventh graders did not do as well.
No governmental institution
or research organization has collected charter-school-by-charter-school
data on academic results. But most charter schools make annual
reports with such data to their sponsoring school districts.
Since the law places responsibility for monitoring performance
with the sponsoring district, the final determination of success
as measured by test scores is unlikely to be known until charters
-- most of which are authorized for five-year periods -- are reviewed
for renewal. The charter school law cites failure to meet or
pursue any of the pupil outcomes identified in the charter as
a valid reason for revoking a charter.
Parental Satisfaction
Charter schools by definition are consumer-oriented organizations. Students cannot be assigned to attend charter schools but must be placed there by parents voluntarily. And charter school funding is directly tied to student attendance. A charter school that does not keep parents satisfied will not exist long.
There are several indicators of parental satisfaction. First is the long waiting lists and high rate of returning students. All of the schools visited by the Little Hoover Commission had to turn students away, maintained waiting lists and had a good record of retaining students. Although it was not clear whether parents were flocking to the education alternative of their choice or simply fleeing from unattractive educational environments, the demand for the option provided by charter schools is high.
In one instance in Nevada County, parents were the main drivers in the creation of a school that follows Waldorf theory -- with its heavy emphasis on art and drama, developmental appropriateness, teacher continuity across multiple grades and hands-on experiences. The first district the parents approached had no interest in sponsoring the charter, so they tried Twin Ridges Elementary School District. Once the charter was approved, the school eventually settled on a site in Nevada City, half an hour's drive away from the sponsoring district. Parents who send their children to the school are very involved in governance, attending mandatory meetings, committing to restricting television in homes, providing 30 hours of volunteer work per school year and adhering to a student dress code.
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Her daughters were in first and third grade when the mother realized how little they were getting out of Nevada City's neighborhood school. Between the overcrowding in their classrooms and the lack of control that schools have in dealing with troubled kids, they just weren't getting the attention they needed. So she took them home and for two-and-a-half years taught them herself. I never thought I'd be the type to home school, but it was so much fun and we all became involved. The children grew, though, and the demands of the curriculum increased. Looking for more support in math and science, the mother began to re-examine public schools -- and found Grass Valley Charter School. Designed to bring home schoolers back into the public fold, the Grass Valley Charter School offers two options: a straight, supervised home study program and a "academic" program with a modified day. Under the core academic program, students get their language arts, math, social studies and science in a classroom setting from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. daily. Their parents provide art and physical education sessions at home. Covering kindergarten through eighth grade, the school has enrolled 85 students in each of its options, and there is a waiting list for both programs. The school, which shares classroom facilities with another school, remains tightly tied to its district, with no financial autonomy. But the charter gives the school the freedom to be client-driven, according to staff. The curriculum and schedule are designed around the needs of people who have fled the system because -- up until now -- they had no other option. |
Not all parents are that active in the formation and operation of their charter school. But a second indicator of parental satisfaction is the extensive degree of parental involvement. The Commission's interviews with parents during the charter school site visits revealed a pervasive commitment to participating on campuses through volunteer activities that ranged from governance, fund-raising and classroom assistance to janitorial, construction and repair work. While many schools include a requirement for a set amount of parental volunteer time, none told the Commission about enforcement problems. By and large, parents who had gone to the extra effort to identify a desirable school and transport their child to it apparently felt little hardship in also donating time. Each of the schools reported having a variety of volunteer chores available so that parents without the means or schedule flexibility to participate during the day could still have a role in assisting the school.
A more scientific approach
to assessing parental involvement was taken by the Southwest Regional
Laboratory, which surveyed 66 charter schools (receiving 54 responses)
and 83 nearby non-charter public schools (46 responses) on a range
of issues. The Laboratory reported that charter schools have
high rates of parental involvement compared to non-charter schools,
although the absolute percentage of parents involved is not that
high, depending on the activity measured. A substantial number
of charter schools can count on about one fourth of the parents
to help in lunch rooms, offices or playgrounds and about 16 percent
to assist in classrooms.
A third indicator of parental satisfaction is the positive commentary from randomly interviewed parents. Although many educators stress innovative curriculum and teaching methods as the main product of charter schools, most parents focused on subsidiary benefits. Reasons for picking and sticking with charter schools that were reported to the Commission during interviews included:
Like test scores, parental satisfaction can be more meaningfully measured over several years, as charter schools have a chance to develop and either maintain or lose parental loyalty. But initial assessments indicate that charter schools are an option that parents are vitally interested in, and that they are serving to give parents a broader and much-desired range of choices.
Fiscal Value
One of the most startling aspects
of charter founders'
willingness to create alternative schools has been the lack of
additional funding to act as an incentive. Most other reforms
have come with some, even if limited, increase in allocations.
The State's
Healthy Start program, for instance, channels extra resources
to at-risk students. The school restructuring program known by
its authorizing legislation number -- SB 1274 -- gave 212 schools
planning grants of $30 per student and 148 schools an average
$155 per student extra annually for five years to carry out the
planned restructuring. Los Angeles Unified School District's
teacher-and-administrator training program known by the acronym
LEARN provides extra funds for participating schools.
From the beginning, however,
charter schools were meant to be
"revenue
neutral,"
according to the program's
legislative author.
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When Principal Joe Lucente arrived at Fenton Avenue Elementary School in the San Fernando Valley, test scores were in the single digits and kids were out of control. The fifth principal in six years, his first priority was to make the pre-kindergarten-through-sixth-grade school safe and secure. Five years later, "we had done everything we could within the system to make it as good as we could -- but it wasn't enough." Key staff were burned out and planning to leave; Lucente had the opportunity to move on to a nice school in an affluent district. If he was going to stay and keep his people, something would have to change. He looked at LEARN, but teamwork and a higher degree of professionalism were not what he was missing. Charters sounded interesting, "but I thought it would be reshuffling the deck chairs." And then he sat down with the district estimate that charter funding would be $4,300 per student and put together a wish list of how he would run the school if he had a free hand. "The level of staffing, the stuff I would want to buy, everything...I came up with a budget by multiplying $4,300 by the number of kids. And the wish list was within that budget." He shared his figures with the staff. The upside would be the fulfillment of a dream; the downside was that the school would be doing everything on its own with no support. "Ten days later, we had a general staff meeting and 95 percent on a secret ballot said go for it." The result is a 1,244-student school that provides intensive services, both to students and the surrounding community. The services include special attention for English learners (more than 60 percent of the students), after-school enrichment classes, supervised playground access until 6:30 p.m., free breakfast and lunch for all students, parent English classes and individualized assistance for students who need help but are not eligible for special education status. Class sizes are reduced from the district standard, and each teacher has an assistant for half the day. With direct control of 96 percent of the school's funding, Lucente is able to make fast, economical decisions. The examples range from the small practicalities of running a school (the district wanted $5,000 to install and repair light fixtures; a local contractor did the job for $1,475) to basic decisions about curriculum. When the staff wanted better training in phonics, Lucente located a specialist who would train teacher-student teams eight hours a day for nine days during the breaks in the school's year-round calendar. It wouldn't have been impossible if the school were not a charter -- "but it would have taken six months of budget transfers, and the funds might not have been there." |
What this means is that instead of having extra funding because of avoided red tape and bureaucratic processes, charter schools often have fewer resources than their neighboring counterparts. But in many cases where the charter schools have won some degree of fiscal autonomy from their districts, charter administrators have found ways to stretch dollars and divert them directly to the classroom.
One of the most frequently
cited examples is Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles.
After the first year of operation on a $4.6 million budget, the
school had a surplus of $1.2 million, much of which was used to
build additional classrooms, establish a cultural center and library,
reduce class sizes, restore teacher salaries to levels that existed
before a district-wide cut and lengthen the school calendar by
37 days. The savings were achieved through multiple economies,
including streamlining hiring costs, eliminating the ticket-taking
function from the free lunch program and increasing student attendance
rates to 99 percent (schools receive funding based on student's
daily attendance). In addition, the principal has worked to reduce
the cost of liability insurance, and has mainstreamed special
education students, both to better meet their needs and to reduce
payments to the district for special services.
At Darnall-E Campus in San Diego, the principal manages a budget of about $2 million, compared to the $12,000 or so that most similar schools have discretion over. With that comes a heavy responsibility, but also the exhilaration of figuring out ways to stretch dollars. When the school was cramped for space, it sought district bungalows. The principal discovered that not only would they cost four times what he could pay elsewhere, but also the district's planning staff was so backlogged that it would be months before his school's turn for blueprints. Using his charter-granted ability, he acquired the bungalows on his own. When the other district schools saw what he had accomplished, they pressured the district into creating a mechanism that allowed speedier and cheaper purchasing for all schools. Meanwhile, such savings at Darnall-E have allowed the school to open a before-and- after-school child care center that serves breakfast and charges only $35 per week.
O'Farrell
Community School in San Diego found that it could hire a gardener
on its own cheaper than using the district's
once-a-week service. Fenton Avenue Charter School in the San
Fernando Valley runs its own food service, saving money and providing
better meals. All of Fenton's
cost-trimming efforts added up to a $200,000 surplus the first
year, much of which is channeled back to extra resource teachers
and information technology opportunities for students. Peabody
Charter School in Santa Barbara uses low-cost assistants under
the direction of a physical education teacher to run an educationally
sound exercise program while recapturing funds to add more art
options to the curriculum.
Almost all of the schools visited
by the Little Hoover Commission cited various cost savings that
allowed more flexibility in serving students. And the Southwest
Regional Laboratory surveys found a strong emphasis on fiscal
freedom among charter school administrators. Their research showed
that 64 percent of the schools had fewer purchasing restrictions
than their counterpart schools; 47 percent felt they had more
money to meet their objectives; and 50 percent believed they were
spending money more wisely.
Putting more dollars directly into the classroom is a high priority for many critics of the existing education system. Therefore, charter schools that creatively manage their funding to benefit students with more services can be judged successful. And in many cases, according to the Little Hoover Commission's research and surveys by Southwest Regional Laboratory, such fiscal prudence is successfully occurring in charter schools.
Innovation
Although there is no law requiring all public schools to teach in the same manner, the top-down controls over many aspects of education push schools in the same direction. The State authorizes the use of certain textbooks, districts set parameters for curriculum so students can move from grade to grade and school to school, and schools set expectations for teacher activities in the classroom.
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Forming a charter is sometimes a school's response to overwhelming conditions and poor academic achievement. But almost as often, the charter concept is picked up by schools that are already busy experimenting, reforming and reaching for excellence. O'Farrell Community School: A 1,400-student middle school, O'Farrell was in the State's Healthy Start program, was an SB 1274 school restructuring grant recipient, served as a magnet school for the district and also was a participant in the Coalition of Essential Schools. With a population of low-income, ethnically diverse students, O'Farrell had already substantially restructured its program and methods before the charter opportunity emerged. The school focuses on individual responsibility and personal commitment through a " house" |